In our most high-profile event to date, Emily joined Jane Fonda and frontline climate activists on stage at the Academy to tell Hollywood writers to step up their game.
This is fantastic! Thank you for representing and sharing your expertise. Love the message that we tell these stories because we love the earth. The added pressure of engendering massive change with every story is paralyzing. I’ve been working on a story of methane, Marcellus fracking and an asthmatic climate scientist. This motivates me to just get it the f out there already!
Plot outlines: A marginal farm gets two wind turbines as part of a large windfarm. The kids somehow cash the annual $60,000 check and start a program to train local floundering youth as turbine maintenance mechanics, or open a queer coffee shop, or build a nifty shop to tinker with clean farm equipment, or abscond to NZ, or...
Small dustbowl county gets three huge hybrid wind/solar farms and with the $5,000,000/yr in new taxes, they rebuild their schools, provide some incentives to an organic greenhouse operation, provide weatherization and free electric heat to struggling families and the old downtown flourishes and...
Documentary featuring Donnel Baird's story and BlocPower.
Just feature positive stories about efficiency, electrification, renewables. They exist. I don't view much "Hollywood," but I notice that in English-made TV, in anything contemporary, the kitchen sets now usually have electric cooktops in them. A quick change in a few years. Sometimes wind turbines spin in the background, and sometimes figure prominently. A lot more folks seem to ride bikes.
The solar and wind power coming online this year in Germany will produce as much electricity annually as their last three nuke plants just closed. Just sayin'
Everything you said was absolutely wonderful and is a reason why I love HEATED. The smaller, more individual stories matter too and are just as important, and I am truly grateful to you and Arielle reporting on them, and not just from a climate organizing/activism point of view, but also bringing more joy to the world in recognizing good people doing what they can.
But that also is what makes this so fucking difficult for me. I just can't reconcile your awesome words and the person sitting to your right, Jane Fonda. Other than being a climate activist and working to help get Democrats elected, my main "fight" is keeping nuclear plants online, and building more.
And Fonda has spent her entire life working against that, even though I think it is obviously clear that, at the very least, replacing current nuclear with fossil fuels, which is what happens every time, is a disaster for both the climate and any sense of environmental justice.
It is impossible to quantify how much damage she has done in the past, where the only option other than nuclear was coal, so I can only really talk about the harms today. And her continued opposition to keeping Diablo Canyon running, knowing what it provides to California, knowing what I know about the climate and what will happen if it shuts down, I can't see it as anything other than a complete disregard for me and my friends and everyone else, and the very real harms we will receive.
Like you brilliantly say "an individual fighting a systemic problem, that can be traced back to people with names and address". And from perspective, one of those people was sitting 5 feet from you leading a panel at a climate summit.
Maybe it is what it is, and this is just the climate movement with all its contradictions. But at the same time, I just take this one issue so personally because I can only see it as hurting my friends, the people I care about the most, by those who should know better and have had all the time in the world to admit how wrong they are, and yet are still seen as a positive force for the climate.
But to end, I wanted to say you being on this panel and even things like Piers Morgan correcting his bullshit, even if it didn't change the minds of his audience, does show how important your work and HEATED is, and the amazing platform and community you have built.
You deserve every ounce of success you achieved and I truly believe you and HEATED are saving the world.
Hollywood writers, directors and producers are increasing their participation in important climate discussions. One of my favorite iconoclastic directors/writers, Oliver Stone, recently released Nuclear Now, his contribution to the climate change discussion.
Like many of us, he was inspired to dig deeply into climate by "An Inconvenient Truth." But until he read a New York Times book review of "A Bright Future," he was frustrated by the continued increases in the world's fossil fuel consumption. He knew there was a lot of wind and solar being built, but they were not yet slowing fossil fuel demand in real terms.
Joshua Goldstein's "A Bright Future" helped him see nuclear power from a different perspective.
His research revealed that much of what we have been taught to believe about nuclear power isn't true. He learned that stalwarts of the fossil fuel establishment worked hard to help create nuclear fear as a means of slowing a formidable competitor that was poised to take large chunks of market share. Their tool was an assertion that every dose of radiation down to a single ionizing event carried a risk of genetic damage and cancer.
That assertion has been disproven by hundreds of detailed studies in the 75 years since it was first introduced. But we are still taught that there is "no safe dose" and that there is no amount of money that is too much to spend as long as it modestly reduces potential exposures.
Nuclear fission is a compact heat source that does not release any air pollution or greenhouse gases. It uses manufactured fuel with an "all in" cost that is < 1/3 the price of cheap natural gas. Focused actions, many quietly supported by fossil fuel interests, helped to slow it down and add numerous layers of costs that do nothing to improve safety.
Climate activists that oppose nuclear power should move past their priors and ask hard questions about why they have been taught to fear radiation and nuclear energy.
Where should people planning legacy gifts look to determine who will use a gift most effectively to achieve progress in slowing climate change. Organizations that disperse funds to focused activity by other groups? Lobbying organizations? Research programs? Where do donations make the biggest strategic hit?
HEATED goes to Hollywood
This is fantastic! Thank you for representing and sharing your expertise. Love the message that we tell these stories because we love the earth. The added pressure of engendering massive change with every story is paralyzing. I’ve been working on a story of methane, Marcellus fracking and an asthmatic climate scientist. This motivates me to just get it the f out there already!
You know you've made the big time when you're appearing in fancy Getty Images. Congrats.
Proud of you, Emily. Your passion and knowledge shine in those videos.
The videos are amazing! So good! Three cheers for all the strong women on that panel! ❤️🌹🌸
Plot outlines: A marginal farm gets two wind turbines as part of a large windfarm. The kids somehow cash the annual $60,000 check and start a program to train local floundering youth as turbine maintenance mechanics, or open a queer coffee shop, or build a nifty shop to tinker with clean farm equipment, or abscond to NZ, or...
Small dustbowl county gets three huge hybrid wind/solar farms and with the $5,000,000/yr in new taxes, they rebuild their schools, provide some incentives to an organic greenhouse operation, provide weatherization and free electric heat to struggling families and the old downtown flourishes and...
Documentary featuring Donnel Baird's story and BlocPower.
Just feature positive stories about efficiency, electrification, renewables. They exist. I don't view much "Hollywood," but I notice that in English-made TV, in anything contemporary, the kitchen sets now usually have electric cooktops in them. A quick change in a few years. Sometimes wind turbines spin in the background, and sometimes figure prominently. A lot more folks seem to ride bikes.
The solar and wind power coming online this year in Germany will produce as much electricity annually as their last three nuke plants just closed. Just sayin'
I really wish I could have been there. Congrats on a successful panel!
Incredible Emily. Well done ! And you’re just getting started.
Everything you said was absolutely wonderful and is a reason why I love HEATED. The smaller, more individual stories matter too and are just as important, and I am truly grateful to you and Arielle reporting on them, and not just from a climate organizing/activism point of view, but also bringing more joy to the world in recognizing good people doing what they can.
But that also is what makes this so fucking difficult for me. I just can't reconcile your awesome words and the person sitting to your right, Jane Fonda. Other than being a climate activist and working to help get Democrats elected, my main "fight" is keeping nuclear plants online, and building more.
And Fonda has spent her entire life working against that, even though I think it is obviously clear that, at the very least, replacing current nuclear with fossil fuels, which is what happens every time, is a disaster for both the climate and any sense of environmental justice.
It is impossible to quantify how much damage she has done in the past, where the only option other than nuclear was coal, so I can only really talk about the harms today. And her continued opposition to keeping Diablo Canyon running, knowing what it provides to California, knowing what I know about the climate and what will happen if it shuts down, I can't see it as anything other than a complete disregard for me and my friends and everyone else, and the very real harms we will receive.
Like you brilliantly say "an individual fighting a systemic problem, that can be traced back to people with names and address". And from perspective, one of those people was sitting 5 feet from you leading a panel at a climate summit.
Maybe it is what it is, and this is just the climate movement with all its contradictions. But at the same time, I just take this one issue so personally because I can only see it as hurting my friends, the people I care about the most, by those who should know better and have had all the time in the world to admit how wrong they are, and yet are still seen as a positive force for the climate.
But to end, I wanted to say you being on this panel and even things like Piers Morgan correcting his bullshit, even if it didn't change the minds of his audience, does show how important your work and HEATED is, and the amazing platform and community you have built.
You deserve every ounce of success you achieved and I truly believe you and HEATED are saving the world.
Good on you for getting the message out in such a high profile forum!
PS: I love "The Day after Tomorrow"--I will watch it every time that it is on!
Hollywood writers, directors and producers are increasing their participation in important climate discussions. One of my favorite iconoclastic directors/writers, Oliver Stone, recently released Nuclear Now, his contribution to the climate change discussion.
Like many of us, he was inspired to dig deeply into climate by "An Inconvenient Truth." But until he read a New York Times book review of "A Bright Future," he was frustrated by the continued increases in the world's fossil fuel consumption. He knew there was a lot of wind and solar being built, but they were not yet slowing fossil fuel demand in real terms.
Joshua Goldstein's "A Bright Future" helped him see nuclear power from a different perspective.
His research revealed that much of what we have been taught to believe about nuclear power isn't true. He learned that stalwarts of the fossil fuel establishment worked hard to help create nuclear fear as a means of slowing a formidable competitor that was poised to take large chunks of market share. Their tool was an assertion that every dose of radiation down to a single ionizing event carried a risk of genetic damage and cancer.
That assertion has been disproven by hundreds of detailed studies in the 75 years since it was first introduced. But we are still taught that there is "no safe dose" and that there is no amount of money that is too much to spend as long as it modestly reduces potential exposures.
Nuclear fission is a compact heat source that does not release any air pollution or greenhouse gases. It uses manufactured fuel with an "all in" cost that is < 1/3 the price of cheap natural gas. Focused actions, many quietly supported by fossil fuel interests, helped to slow it down and add numerous layers of costs that do nothing to improve safety.
Climate activists that oppose nuclear power should move past their priors and ask hard questions about why they have been taught to fear radiation and nuclear energy.
Rod Adams, Publisher, Atomic Insights.
Host and producer, the Atomic Show podcast
Managing Partner, Nucleation Capital
Where should people planning legacy gifts look to determine who will use a gift most effectively to achieve progress in slowing climate change. Organizations that disperse funds to focused activity by other groups? Lobbying organizations? Research programs? Where do donations make the biggest strategic hit?